We need to hire a Bristol SEO company- how much should we be paying every month?
Introduction
For a lot of businesses in Bristol, it’s simply a no brainer, that is, they know they need to hire a local SEO agency to help improve the companies sales, it just all boils down to one thing- how much should they be paying per month?
Everyone knows that there is a lot of truth in the saying, “you do get what you pay for”- however with that said, even paying an arm and leg for improving your companies organic SEO, well, it’s no guarantee that you will see results.
So, there you have it, we’ve more or less answered the question in the very first couple of paragraphs, that is, it doesn’t really matter how much you pay for seo, but it all comes down to is this, at the end of the day, it is the quality of the work not how much you pay.
Respected
There are a million and one SEO agencies out there, quite literally there are just a huge number of companies to pick from. In Bristol alone, there’s so many to pick from, from freelancers working from home, through to large agencies, with a lot of staff all busy building backlinks, writing content marketing and putting together month end seo reports.
Yet here’s the thing, what you really need is an agency which cuts the mustard, which is respected and which really understands white hat SEO.
We are such a company here in Bristol, but we are obviously not the only one, there are many other highly regarded companies which also do a brilliant job here, so its hard knowing which company to hire.
So, what you really need is a respected company, and by that we mean one which really delivers quality work, a company that has an exceptional reputation, and is used by many prestigious companies throughout the country.
Now as you would expect, such businesses don’t come cheap, when it comes to SEO, you really do need quality, and often this comes at the price.
But just as we mentioned right at the top of this article, forking out a ton of money, well it doesn’t guarantee you that you will see great seo results neither, so it’s not just about how much you pay. Its all about quality, make sure you hire a quality agency, which delivers quality work.
Make sure you have enough for the long-term
So it’s well and good setting up a new business, opening up a business premises in say central Bristol, and writing in say your business plan that you can start generating leads through digital marketing in let’s say a short period of time.
Yet, what happens when you ask certain SEO agencies, such as ours, and we say simply not possible, to start generating leads within the first year?
This sometimes is the case, for example in highly competitive industries, such as for estate agents, accountants and lawyers, these businesses are up against huge amounts of competition.
Which means that a lot have most likely partnered with SEO agencies long before now, some might have even been paying for SEO improvements for well over 10 years, so to think that you can leapfrog those companies overnight, well is naive at best.
That’s because a real honest SEO agency, will sit you down make you a nice cup of tea, and will explain to you, that if you operate in a really highly competitive business sector, then you need to beat businesses which are most likely already have very strong SEO.
They might not have spent tens of thousands of pounds on their SEO, in some industries they might have forked out millions of pounds. Therefore, businesses coming along with a rather modest marketing budget, well, is likely going to be a drop in the ocean in comparison to what some of the other businesses have spent.
This is not to deter you from hiring a digital marketing agency, yet you really do need to be realistic, which leads us on nicely to our next quite point.
Be realistic
You really have to be realistic when you invest in SEO, its well and good thinking can take on much larger businesses than your own, and you might hire an SEO agency that is willing to sit and nod to everything you say- but let’s say six months have gone by, and they are not generating any business, you might be less friendly towards your SEO company?
You really therefore have to be realistic, say for example you retail bathroom products, you have one sales room, it’s in a rather nice location in Bristol,.
At your bathroom company you have let’s say 30 staff, and you now want to expand your online sales, to start selling high-end bathroom items. Yet you do need to stop the look at the competition, that is other companies which are also selling bathroom items online.
You might be, we hate to say it, a rather small fish in a very big pond, and by that we mean that you might suddenly be up against businesses, which are more likely than not spending millions on their digital marketing.
Therefore, strolling into your local SEO company in Bristol, and saying you want to improve your organic SEO, might not be that effective, if let’s say you only willing to spend 3000k month- it’s a drop in the ocean, when compared with what your direct competitors are spending.
So how much should you be paying per month?
Well, this is kind of like saying how fast should a super car be?
It all depends on the owner and how fast you want to go, some people it might be happy with a local SEO agency, which helps them to trickle in a few extra leads in per month. In return they might charge a low monthly retainer of let’s say 500 quid a month.
However, if you really serious about growing the business on a national level, and you’re up against really large competitors, then sometimes hundreds thousands a month might not cut the mustard, because you rivals might be spending even more than that, lets say a really large DIY chain, they are likely to be spending a lot, so you have to be realistic if your just thinking of spending, less than 3k a month to try and sell more bathroom items nationally.
Find an honest SEO agency
You might think it’s like finding a needle in a haystack, but in reality there are some really good SEO agencies out there, which employee some really talented staff.
As lets say they have SEO consultants, which are dedicated to understanding just organic SEO, they might have let’s say over 10 years experience, and might even have a lot of knowledge about your business sector as well.
You need to find an agency which offers honest advice, if they say something can be difficult, then that’s worth listening to.
From our experience it’s the agencies which just tell you anything is possible, and only want to take your money, which means that later on down the line, you might have squandered your SEO investment, but worse than that, they might have actually damaged the SEO to the point where is a lot of work done just to fix it.
It is possible to go into reverse
We don’t want to end the article on a bad or sour note, yet you need to know this, that is purchasing SEO is not like buying a sofa for your house.
Sofas have a different designs, it might have different materials such as leather or cloth, and you willing to pay a high price for lets a designer sofa. Were in all intents and purposes, a sofa, well its just somewhere to sit down, so it’s a generic item.
You might think, well now they really stating the obvious?
However, were not stating the obvious at all, because with SEO, this is definitely not a generic type of service, some companies can help you to draw in a huge amount of extra sales, yet there’s also companies which can make such a mess of the process, that they can actually get your website penalised.
This is the point we are trying to make, it is not a matter of just picking any SEO agency and hoping for the best, because if you hire the wrong one, they can actually damage your SEO.